Semantic processing persists despite anomalous syntactic category: ERP evidence from Chinese passive sentences

The data is the original data from an event-related potential experiment (24 subjects). The experiment is about Chinese passive/Bei sentences (NP1 + BEI + NP2 + Verb)processing. We manipulated semantic consistency (consistent vs. inconsistent) and syntactic category (noun vs. verb) of the critical verb, yielding four conditions: CORRRECT (correct sentences), SEMANTIC (semantic anomaly), SYNTACTIC (syntactic category anomaly), and COMBINED (combined anomalies). In addition to semantic consistency and syntactic category, both hemisphere (left, middle and right) and region (anterior, central and back) are factors in our stats. Results showed both N400 and P600 effects for sentences with semantic anomaly, with syntactic category anomaly, and with combined anomalies. Converging with recent findings of Chinese ERP studies on various constructions, our study provides further evidence that syntactic category processing does not precede semantic processing in reading Chinese.